A Whole New Ballgame / Lore of New Park Yet to Be Recorded

2000-04-12 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- The memories of a place are never written in their openings.

It takes time, and events, to carve out a legacy. We will recall that we were there at Pac Bell Park on the Giants' long-awaited opening day, and perhaps that managing general partner Peter Magowan threw out the first pitch. The "I was there" T-shirts will fade slowly after years of washing.

But the stories we will tell our children, and grandchildren, are yet to happen. This will change once the red, white and blue bunting comes down, and the opening ceremonies consist of no more than batting practice and the exchange of lineup cards.

We will learn the best routes to the park, become comfortable with the stroll through the city streets. Popcorn will be spilled, Dodgers will be booed, and when someone hits one hard to the deepest part of the park, as Giants catcher Doug Mirabelli did in the second inning yesterday, we will nudge the person next to us and say, wisely, "Watch. This could be a triple."

It was.

There is always something overdone and artificial about grand openings, and yesterday was no exception. There were roaring jet flyovers, the hearty belting of "San Francisco" by Val Diamond from "Beach Blanket Babylon," and dignified tooting from the tuxedoed members of the San Francisco Symphony horn section. There were parachutists, American flags, followed by even larger flags.

A bag of peanuts was tossed by a vendor in Section 117. A damp puddle of spilled beer began to appear on the floor of the Promenade Concourse down the left field line. A father turned to a son, or a daughter, and asked, "Can you see OK?"

And about that time, Giants outfielder Barry Bonds lined a hooking shot due south that kicked off the pure, perfect grass in right field and clanged off chain fence like the bell of a new morning.

That's when it really started.

"All I can say," said Giants' manager Dusty Baker after the 6-5 win by the Dodgers, "is you ain't seen nothin' yet."

This is a good thing. Let the beer- spilling begin. Already we are starting to get the hang of this.

Do you remember the time, against the Dodgers, when Barry Bonds took a foul ball right off his right instep, and got up off the ground to hit one away and gone over the center-field fence? Some 40,930 fans do. It happened yesterday in the third inning, about the time we all noticed that a ballgame was taking place.

THERE'S STILL WIND

Already, some truths are self-evident. The wind, for example, is still a factor. About 1:30 yesterday afternoon, Mike Mosely, a project superintendent for the construction pointed out to the weather vane in center field.

"See that?" he said as the arrow swung back and forth. "Sometimes it gets so confused that it starts to spin around. There isn't much wind in the morning, but it picks up in the afternoon, and then dies after dark."

Still, someone like Jim McCormick claims that the wind at Pac Bell is "a piece of cake compared to Candlestick." Everybody has an opinion about the wind, of course, except that McCormick is one of the few who started his commute to the park at a height of 4,000 feet. "I am," he said, "the first sky diver to jump into both Pac Bell and Candlestick Park."

Which would also have been true of his fellow parachutist, Jim Wallace, except that he got caught in the currents and realized he wasn't going to clear the scoreboard. So he set his para sail, with the American flag he was hauling, into the vacant lot behind left field. No big deal, Wallace said. But then skydivers tend to take these moments in stride.

"We were wondering if we hit the water," McCormick said, "would it count on the 'splash hits' scoreboard in right field."

BUMPER BOATS A GOOD SHOW

The wind we expected. The water comes as a bit of a surprise. The nine-inning session of bumper boats out in McCovey Cove is the second best show in China Basin.

Yesterday there were jet skis, kayaks, sailboats, cabin cruisers, and a guy on a surfboard wearing a banana costume. The rule is no anchoring, so the boats are constantly shifting, bumping each other, fighting the current.

At any given moment there are several thousand people who are leaning on the Promenade railing, with their backs to the game, just watching the maneuvering. They knew, of course, that if anything important happened, they could catch the replay on the video screen in center field.

In the long run, they didn't miss much. Nobody is going to dine out on the strength of his story about how he was at the game when Kevin Elster hit three home runs.

"Guy hits three home runs to initial the ballpark," said Baker, shaking his head, "I don't think I've ever seen that."

BETTER STORIES TO COME

There will be better stories here. Some will involve the wind, or the water, or even defeat. The Giants will be at Pac Bell Park tonight, tomorrow night and the night after that. They will win, and lose, and create a new saga every year. Our job is just to wait, and watch. The best news is, we've got great seats and a great location. When J.T. Snow lobbed one up into the short porch in right field in the bottom of the ninth to cut the Dodger lead to one run, the roars could be heard in the Financial District.